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Wednesday, July 2, 2014

Begineer to BizTalk Expert : Interview with Steef-Jan Wiggers

Starting a blog series where I would be interviewing the BizTalk experts all around the world, the focus will be on getting the insights on how to become expert and what experts did to become expert.
Today's BizTalk guru is Steef-Jan Wiggers. Before starting the interview I would like to congratulate Steef on being rewarded MVP award for 5th time in a row(http://soa-thoughts.blogspot.in/2014/07/microsoft-integration-mvp-2014-5th-time.html).

I met (virtually) Steef through TechNet Wiki last year and it was him, the first person who guided me proactively and helped me improvising the BizTalk articles. And I know, like me, he has guided many new contributors, playing the role of guardian very well. Before that, I was already found of his articles, which demonstrated the amount of knowledge, expertise he has in BizTalk. He is one who has been consistent for many years with the eagerness and desire to serve the community by sharing his knowledge and experience via TechNet Wiki , blogs and forums. Great to have such person in the community.Lets start the interview....Mahesh: Who are you and what you do?

Steef:My name is Steef-Jan, married, three children
and living in Ede a village near the National Park “The Hoge Veluwe”. As an all-round
integration specialist I work on different projects with various customers
building integration solutions with Microsoft Technology like .NET (WCF), WF, SQL,
and BizTalk Server. My role involves architecting and designing solutions,
perform audits, guide installation and configurations of BizTalk environments,
development and do consultancy.

Mahesh: When did you start working on BizTalk?

Steef:I started
working with BizTalk Server in 2005 as junior BizTalk professional. By then I
had six years of .NET development, SQL Server and OS experience. I was a
certified MSCD.NET, MCDBA and MCSA 2003. It was not too difficult for me to enroll into BizTalk Server product
and technology behind it. I started with installations and configurations of
BizTalk 2004. Not an easy task back then. Subsequently I developed my first
BizTalk solutions.

Mahesh: How did you master BizTalk (Learning path)?

Steef:The learning path can be different from person to person. I myself already
had a vast experience with Visual Studio, SQL Server, XML, and XSD’s and so on.
Therefore, I could focus on learning the product itself and gain experience by
doing projects. I believe the best way to master BizTalk is by experience. The
way you can approach this is by reading one of my TechNet Wiki articles named: BizTalk Server 2013: Beginners
Guide. I did the write up so others can use that approach it that suits them.

Mahesh: Which are the major projects you handled so far?

Steef:During the last couple of years I have done various large BizTalk projects
for global and local operating customers in verticals like retail, telecom,
energy, and insurance. In those projects the challenging aspects are deployment
and operations not the development.

Mahesh: How do you see BizTalk compare to other
integration platform?

Steef: BizTalk is the best choice as an integration platform in a heterogeneous
environment. The choice for BizTalk is platform depended. Therefore, in a
predominantly Microsoft environment BizTalk is the logical choice and challenging
to compare with other products. I feel Gartner does a better job of comparing
integration platforms than we as BizTalk professionals.

Mahesh: What as per you is must to know to become an Integration (BizTalk) Expert?

Steef: I have a passion for technology and BizTalk in particular. I started
working with the products in 2005, and after a year I decided to share my
experience and knowledge through a blog. I started blogging on blogspot.com,
where I created a blog called “SOA Thoughts, EAI Challenges”. SOA was a hot
topic at that moment and Microsoft organized conferences like SOA & BPM,
where BizTalk was featured as Microsoft's offering for SOA and BPM. BizTalk in
my view can be a right fit as an enabler for SOA with Microsoft Technology. I
visited the last three conferences held at Microsoft Campus in 2006, 2007, and
2009. With every visit I shared my experience through blog posts and with my
colleagues. Soon after the first conference in 2006 I started writing articles
for Dutch magazines and did presentations, sharing my gained insights to fellow
BizTalk professionals.

After writing articles and blogging, I started helping people out in
BizTalk forums. In June 2010 I was nominated for MVP and July 1st I was
awarded. Filled with joy, excitement, and appreciation, I became even more
active on forums, writing more articles, and presenting nationally and
internationally for BizTalk User Groups. Being an MVP gave me a boost and more opportunities
to share my knowledge and experience with the community. For instance,
beginning of this year, PackT publishing gave me the opportunity to review
a BizTalk book, and even the opportunity to write one. So I started
writing a BizTalk Cookbook and it is due to be released the beginning next
year.

The great thing about Microsoft MSDN Forums, Blogs, Code Gallery, and the TechNet
Wiki is that you can share your knowledge and experience. Recently, I even
started being active on Code Gallery and TechNet Wiki sharing code samples and
writing Wiki articles. The general message that's coming from myself is to
share your knowledge with passion, dedication, and persistence. At the end of
the day you will be appreciated for your efforts, and it can lead to becoming
a well-respected community member like an MVP.

Mahesh: What are your thoughts on forums, blogs and articles etc.?

Steef: Forums, blogs, articles, books, sites, and so on are all resources you can
access to learn more on BizTalk Server, or help you with building a solution,
or can aid in helping to solve an issue you are facing. The number of resources
grew substantially on BizTalk the last couple of years. When I started with
BizTalk Server there not as much of the resources as there are today. These
resources play in my view a vital role in the success of BizTalk Server today.

Mahesh: Your suggestion to a newcomers? What should be the approach to have a sound
knowledge in BizTalk?

Steef:Certification is a means of showing your knowledge of the product towards
customers. However, certification alone will not tell how skillful you are. A
better indicator for that is experience, the number of projects and
endorsements from peers.

Mahesh: What is the future of BizTalk?

Steef:The product, BizTalk Server is still standing
strong and Microsoft will be investing in now with the upcoming release and
beyond that. Besides BizTalk Microsoft is putting tremendous effort in its
cloud counterpart Microsoft Azure BizTalk Service. My prediction is that in
some point of time there will be a convergence between the on premise BizTalk
Server and Microsoft Azure BizTalk Server. This means there will be a kind of
symmetry between both of them, where you build your solution and deploy it
either on premise or in Azure.Thanks a lot Steef, am sure many of us will be benefited from your insights and your journey is inspiring !!!!!!

Feedjit

Disclaimer

The contents of this blog are my personal views and they are no way related to my Employer/Company.The sole purpose of this Blog is to help others by posting about the common/uncommon scenarios faced while working.